Page 43 of The Reunion

Oh, God, is this it? Is this my penance for lying so spectacularly? Someone has found me out and decided to make me pay – decided that I will live on forever in infamy, when I am plastered all over the front page of the papers having been brutally murdered at a school reunion? Someone is going to jump out from one of those black, empty hallways and slash my throat, or—

A hand closes on my shoulder and I shriek. Shriek. Loud enough to shatter glass. A high G I never could hit on the stage.

My right arm swings out and someone ducks away from the hand I’ve fisted around my phone. It clatters to the floor and I think I black out for a second, but it’s hard to tell when everything is already pitch black. My heart seizes. It feels like I’ve just been kicked in the chest and I’m going to be the world’s easiest target for the School Reunion Slasher, because all I do is double over and clutch my knees, trying to get my breath back.

My would-be attacker bends to pick up my phone and it illuminates a tall, skinny frame, a spray of ginger hair and a pale, awkward face.

‘Sorry,’ Hayden says gently, and holds my phone back towards me. He sways a little, his eyes still that glassy drunk from the last time I saw him. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you, B. Just thought you might want some help. I … er – well, you know me. I know my way around a soldering iron, ha-ha.’

I shove weakly at Hayden’s stomach, all I can reach of him where I’m keeled over, and my legs turn into jelly as the adrenaline rush of almost being murdered recedes.

‘You dick,’ I gasp out, but can’t quite find it in me to scowl at him as I right myself. ‘I thought you were some creeper lurking around the corridors with a hatchet or something.’

‘A hatchet? Really? That’s what you’re going with?’

I ignore him and finally snatch my phone back. I notice his own is out, the torch on too, casting some extra light around the hallway.

‘I don’t need your help,’ I tell him.

‘Well, then, consider me a buffer from the hatchet-wielding menace you’re sure is after you.’ He gives me a wide, sloppy sort of grin that’s so unlike him, and salutes.

‘Hilarious,’ I mutter, but – honestly, was Hayden always this funny? Did he always have that dry, deadpan kind of humour, or did we just never notice it?

He gives me a patient look, undeterred and unoffended. ‘Look, there’s not a lot I can really contribute to the party atmosphere, but I can probably help with this. Least I can do. Plus, you’d be doing me a favour, letting me tag along.’

‘Oh yeah?’

He nods and doesn’t expand, so I narrow my eyes at him in the most melodramatically haughty and suspicious way I can, then toss my hair. Slipping back into my role, shaking off the heebie-jeebies. If this is a spooky episode in my life, then I am Daphne. Fabulous and unfaltering. Hayden can be Scooby-Doo if he wants, I guess.

‘Alright,’ I tell him, very magnanimously. ‘You can come along.’

He falls into step beside me with long, loping strides to match my brisk pace. The sooner I get this sorted, the less of a shitshow it threatens to become. I will not have this party fail on my watch, and God, how humiliating if I had to call it a night early. How quickly will the appeal of sing-alongs to a few cheesy hits from one guy’s phone wear off? Everyone will get bored sooner or later, the vibe will be well and truly killed, and everybody will leave, and it will ruin the whole thing.

That’s not how I want people to remember tonight.

Or me. Mostly me.

We get to the caretaker’s office where I know the fuse box will be, but when Hayden jiggles the handle, it’s locked. He looks at me like I have the answers.

Which I do, and before I can second-guess myself, I’m blurting, ‘There’s a spare key in the staffroom.’

He blinks, which feels like a question.

He says, ‘Won’t that be locked, too?’ Only I know that’s not the question he was really just about to ask and my adrenaline spikes all over again. Goddamn Scooby-Doo over here, solving mysteries. And I would’ve gotten away with it, too …

I wonder if, without the music leaking down the corridors from the hall, he can hear how ferociously my heart is pounding. It roars in my ears like applause and my chest tightens the way it does when my cue is approaching. Time for the performance of a lifetime, Bryony. My bracelet snags on a loose thread on my jumpsuit and I yank it free to gesture widely, emphatically, casually.

‘You know what? Why don’t you head back to the hall. I think there might be a fuse box behind the stage; you could look at that. I’ll take care of this. It’s no big.’

Hayden’s brow furrows and he bumps his glasses up his nose a little. He’s got that look brewing, the haywire one. It used to be funny; now, it just spells trouble. Capital T.

He’s going to figure it out, he’s going to know and he’s going to tell people, and he’ll tell Ashleigh and she’ll tell Steph and Steph will tell Shaun and all their friends will know and then everyone will know and …

‘Seriously.’ I start pushing him away, chivvying him back towards the hall. ‘You look backstage, okay? I’ll – I’ll break in! They’ll totally understand; it’s all good. I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble, though. I’ve got this. Promise.’

‘But—’

‘You know what, I bet the staffroom’s not even locked! And it’s just going to be a tripped fuse anyway, right? So it’s an easy fix! If it’s not, we better not mess with it anyway, in case we break it even worse. You go on back, Hayden – it’s fine.’

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